The need of accurate and quick but affordable diagnostic medical devices with mobility is becoming more important for routine or periodic check up in a person's busy life. In this perspective, several personal electronic devices that are communication or infotainment oriented have been exploited to be used as health care monitoring device. Few examples of electronic devices may include Smartphone, tablet etc. These electronic devices are becoming cheaper by the day and also possess enormous capability for computing due to the application of multi-core CPU, high resolution and high dynamic range of camera, sufficient storage, wireless communication and excellent quality display.
On the other hand, the need of quick monitoring of sugar or salt contents in bodily fluid like urine and blood as a bio marker in routine is inevitable to have preventive care for health conditions. One of the popular, inexpensive and quick methods is paper micro-fluidic assay based Point of Care (POC) devices. In the POC devices, the diagnostic health parameters are derived from colorimetric parameters of assay. Currently, the colorimetric analysis is performed by an instrument using color analyzer or customized video camera with a computer. However, presently there is no affordable, mobile and self-diagnostic care instrument.
Few challenges associated with consistent quantitative measurement using a Smartphone or tablet is mentioned herein. The consistent quantitative determination of colorimetric parameters needs to be optimized for photography in ambient conditions, since the color image is highly dependent on ambient lighting or flash lighting conditions. Further, the resolution of the image captured in any camera system is dependent not only on focusing and lighting conditions, but also on the distance at which the image is captured. This raises the issue of imaging at known height or at same height which is difficult to assure or otherwise restrict the usage only to trained experts. The need of low power consumption is another issue that restricts computations that are needed for geometric image analysis for colorimetry. In addition, the evaluation of small color changes in the POC color paper assay is difficult. This is because capturing minor level chemical changes in the POC color paper assay before and after dipping into the bodily fluid in question by the Smartphone or tablet camera optics may not be accurate. Further, the calorimetric calibration of the POC color strip that are mentioned on the assay may not hold accurately though these calibrations are carried out in factory controlled environment. This is because the colorimetric parameters naturally drift due to aging of color. Therefore, there is a need for a method and a device for performing colorimetric analysis of a test fluid to evaluate associated physiological parameters.